Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Tsurugi (1990)

Mission complete! I finally finished it. It was the most frustrating experience I've ever had with a game, but I finally did it! I completed the entire game without losing a single person. Let me tell you, that last battle was absolutely unforgiving. It took me 5 hours of strategizing and repeatedly losing members, only to have to reset again and start over until I finally mastered the stage. It would've been a lot easier had I done some arena battles, which are supposed to be an easy way of stacking exp and currency for stat boost items later on. However, I only found this out after the fact, and by then it was too late. Every single battle from 16 onward felt like an insurmountable situation, but I overcame each hurdle, one by one. With that said, I'm going to take a break from hard games for awhile. I prefer a leisurely gaming experience.I give the game 4/5 stars. It has a wonderful plot and characters with fun game mechanics that hold up even today. The only reason I can't give it 5 stars is because rng can be infuriating when you spend an hour or so on a map only to lose someone to a critical hit, requiring a reset. It serves as a great beginning to a beloved series, otherwise.

Finally beat chapter 20. It's been a long time coming. That was absolutely one of the most horrid experiences I've ever had with the series. The RNG is so cheap. I made several perfect attempts over the course of 4 hours, only to be killed by the RNG demon with an enemy critical. A critical in the later part of the game is an assured reset, as I don't think I've ever had a character survive one. It doesn't get any worse than getting to the boss only to miss or to be critically hit, having to start the whole thing over. I have 5 chapters left, and I hear the worst is yet to come.

Chapter 11 wasn't too bad, if not long-winded, but I'd neglected to level Sheeda for the majority of the play-through and i mistakingly put her in a spot where she got one shotted. I had to restart after about 20 minutes of progress on the map, so that was annoying. Trudging my way through. This game is sort of unforgiving in the rng department sometimes. Turn length can get extraneous giving the number of units you have to control. I sort of miss the quality of life changes in later games in the series. On to Chapter 12. *trembles in fear*

Just hit chapter 11 and I gotta say, this game gets DAMN hard. I spent the better part of 4 hours doing chapter 9. Having to take out the pirate with the dreaded Devil's Axe and warp my thief in time to acquire the Dragon Sword to give to Marth, without getting swarmed by pirates from the southern towers.. good lord it was difficult. Chapter 10 had me on the verge of failure til the end, but I pulled through. Oh, yeah.. this was all with zero deaths.